Looking upon these abuses with which political organizations of all kinds are always encumbered, some men propose to abolish all forms of political organization.  This is anarchism, of which there are two varieties,—­the anarchism of violence, and the anarchism of non-resistance.  Czolgosz represents one type and Tolstoy the other.  For the anarchism of violence we can have only detestation and horror; to the anarchism which expects to abolish laws by ignoring them and suffering the consequences, we must extend a respectful toleration.  Nevertheless the anarchism of Tolstoy offers us a programme which is hardly thinkable.  For we are made to live and work together; and if we work together effectively we must have rules and working agreements, methods of cooeperation, and these, whatever name we may give them, will have the force of constitutions and laws.  The great cooeperations, on which the welfare of society depends, involve social organization.  Even if the form which this takes should be largely economic, it would have political force and significance.  Man is a political animal; it is his nature to live politically; and, as Horace says, you may drive out nature with a pitchfork, but she is sure to come back.  And the same weaknesses of human nature which infested the old forms of organization would be found in the new ones, unless human nature itself were regenerated.

Those who would destroy political society on account of its abuses are, therefore, guilty of the same foolishness as that of the man who burned his house to get rid of the rats.  Doubtless the rats all escaped and were ready to enter, with reinforcements, into the new house as soon as it was builded.

The same reasoning applies to ecclesiastical anarchism.  Those who, because of the defects of church organizations, would abolish the churches, are equally unpractical.  For it is not only true, as we saw in our first chapter, that religion is a primal fact of human nature, it is equally true that religion everywhere has a social manifestation.  The same impulse which moves men to worship, draws them together in their worship.

Any deep or strong emotion makes human beings congregate.  Just as a flock of sheep huddle together when they are frightened, so men, when deeply moved for any cause, seek one another.  As the impulse of religion is one of those by which men are most deeply moved, it always brings them together.

So long as religion keeps the form of fear it produces this result; when fear is succeeded by more grateful emotions, and men begin to have some sense of the goodness of the Power they have been blindly worshiping, then their gladness and gratitude bring them together.  Religion, therefore, in all lands and ages, has been a social interest; indeed, it has been the strongest of the bonds uniting human beings.  To demand a religion which should have no social expression is to fly in the face of nature, and forbid causes to bring forth their normal effects.  Wherever there is religion men will be associated, and their worship and their work will be carried on under forms of social organization.  Anarchism is no more thinkable or workable in religion than in politics.